Refusing to step on the slippery slope …

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s speech about the city NOT outlawing a mosque near ‘ground zero’ World Trade Center is being hailed as one of his finest hours.New YorkDaily News:

He’s usually a technocrat, and often comes across that way, but today’s speech was a stirring declaration of principle.

Key passage, quoted around the world:

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.

Putting my (uninvolved) discomfort at the dichotomy aside, I think he’s right about that.

3 Comments »

There’s some really good discussion going on about this mosque decision in NYC, including this:

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization, has opposed building the new mosque. I hope the A.D.L. is defeated on this issue, and the mosque is built. Still, I am not unhappy to see the A.D.L. raise a ruckus. The ambiguities should be discussed.

I hope that the imam of the mosque and the leader of the A.D.L., in talking over these things, succeed in reassuring one another of their mutual good intentions. I hope the two leaders become the best of friends, and go on marches together, arm in arm, in the cause of religious freedom and against every kind of bigotry.

from Paul Berman, a writer in residence at New York University, the author of, among other books, “Terror and Liberalism,” “Power and the Idealists” and “The Flight of the Intellectuals.”

Now, Michael Bloomberg is learning that what works in New York may not be so well received elsewhere. His call for tolerance and even-handedness may even seem dangerously out of touch for those outside of New York. Critics of the mosque see its users not as potential neighbors, but as unwelcome strangers.

The pain of families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks is understandable. But what of the opponents who don’t live in New York? To them, the World Trade Center doesn’t belong to New York City, and the city has become once again an image rather than a real place. The city will have to find its own way.

Among those out-of-towners, the religious right, typified by ‘… politicians like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and others outside the city have been lacerating in their criticism. Mr. Gingrich, for one, said that the proposed Islamic center “is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites.” ‘ … says The New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/8/5/a-mosque-and-new-york-city

Some seem to think they have some ‘right’ to obliterate the rights of other believers, because of their (sometimes meagre) understanding — their own ‘historic ignorance’ — or worse, cant [def: insincere talk about religion or morals] regarding the Founding Father’s ethnicity and stated religious preferences. Conveniently, they ignore the Freemason influence (oops.)

Sure, as some bigots point out, it says ‘In God We Trust’ on the currency, but what about this?:

from a blog called: GOT MEDIEVAL — A[N INTERMITTENTLY UPDATED] TONIC FOR THE SLIPSHOD USE OF MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN HISTORY IN THE MEDIA AND POP CULTURE.

Professor Newt’s Distorted History Lesson

written by Got Medieval at Monday, August 02, 2010

There are any number of reasons why an American might oppose the Cordoba House, the planned $100 million Muslim-financed community center that has come to be known in the press as the “Ground Zero mosque.” I don’t think any of them are particularly good reasons, but the universe of potential justification is much broader than the narrow scope of this humble blog. There is one justification being floated around, however, that is both within this blog’s purview and completely and totally bogus. Indeed, this particular justification is such an egregious and purposeful misreading of medieval history that I feel I must speak up.

Last week,* Newt Gingrich released a Newt Direct statement at Newt.org concerning the project. As you may have heard, he’s somewhat opposed to it. And to explain why, he offered this history lesson:

The proposed “Cordoba House” overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks – is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex. […I]n fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way. [emphasis mine]

It’s that appositive phrase there buried in the middle of my quote that is the problem. In these twenty-five words, Newt offers the final word on medieval Cordoba: “the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex.” This fact, the transformation of a church into a mosque, is the only thing we should think of when we hear a modern Muslim use the word “Cordoba,” according to Mr. Gingrich.

Notice how carefully he’s phrased his claim to give the impression that during the medieval conquest of Spain the Muslims charged into Cordoba and declared it the capital of a new Muslim empire, and in order to add insult to injury seized control of a Christian church and built the biggest mosque they could, right there in front of the Christians they’d just conquered, a big Muslim middle finger in the heart of medieval Christendom. Essentially, they’ve done it before, they’ll do it again, right there at Ground Zero, if all good Christians don’t band together to stop them.

The problem is, in order to give that impression of immediacy, Newt elides three-hundred years of Christian and Muslim history. Three-hundred years. The Muslims conquered Cordoba in 712. The Christian church that was later transformed into the Great Mosque of Cordoba apparently** continued hosting Christian worship for at least a generation after that. Work on the Mosque didn’t actually begin until seventy-odd years later in 784, and the mosque only became “the world’s third-largest” late in the tenth century, after a series of expansions by much later rulers, probably around 987 or so.

The Christians ought to keep their mouths shut when it comes to mentioning the medieval period (and more ancient history), lest they insert both feet.

Of course most of them are ignorant of the slaughter that took place in Spain when the Christians gained control of it back from the Muslims. The Muslims had ruled in peace over the Christians and the Jews, allowing them to continue practicing their religions and as you say, study side by side. When the Christians took Spain back, they expelled all of the Muslims (that they hadn’t killed) and gave the Jews an ultimatum. Convert, leave or die. Of the ones that converted, they were scrutinized (i.e. tortured and/or executed) by the Spanish Inquisition on a regular basis, and often believed to have relapsed into what Bernard Gui calls the “vomit” of Judaism.

Heck, what am I saying? I bet Newtie boy and his readers have never even heard of Gui. *sigh*

[…] what I’m talking about. Enough with the pious BS from the religious right and those looking for a smokescreen. Amen. Another student of the US Constitution opposes ignorant, shallow religious bigotry. […]

Welcome

Follow The Paepae:

Sign up for Updates!

Sign up for occasional updates from The Paepae. Double opt-in, easy opt-out. [We will NEVER publish nor pass your details to anyone else.]